Guardian Camwar, in Ch. 4 : the cooper<!-- p. 42 -->
The Visitor (2002)
“And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn’t pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it”
Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 251-252, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=45m21s
(Also in book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999) p. 23.)
Context: People say to me, "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?" No, I'm not. I'm just looking to find out more about the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it; that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers and we're just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then that's the way it is!… And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn’t pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it… My interest in science is to simply find out more about the world.
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Richard Feynman 181
American theoretical physicist 1918–1988Related quotes

“When we need somebody haunted we investigate … When we investigate we do so noisily always.”
Manual Of Justice (1959).
“We always do what’s natural, only sometimes we shouldn’t do it.”
Source: The Stars My Destination (1956), Chapter 6 (p. 98).

Quoted in Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae (1996) by Gale E. Christianson, p. 183.

“Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.”

Niafer, in Book Ten : At Manuel's Tomb, Ch. LXIX : Economics of Jurgen
The Silver Stallion (1926)

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 248
First line of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869